Tag Archives: Cambridge diet

The primary goal for Stage 1 of Atkins is to put your body into a state of ‘ketosis’. In English, this means making your body burn fat instead of glucose for its main energy source.

Basically, your body is lazy. If it can get hold of glucose, it’ll burn that. Next, it’ll try the complex carbs (takes longer to turn into glucose). Once there’s no carbs to burn, it’ll turn to the protein & fats which is what I’m eating on this ridiculous diet and which I also have a plentiful supply of on various wobbly bits of my body.

Protein is harder to digest, so to keep up the energy, the body has to turn to its current stores (a bit like the day before grocery shopping where you have to make up crazy recipes from whatever is left in the fridge.

Once you’ve moved onto this, the idea is that you have more control over your cravings as the body stops getting used to it’s quick hits of sugar and when you are really properly hungry it knows it’s going to have to work to digest the next meal. There’s also a bit of a high achieved mentally from breaking through the ‘snack barrier’ – not always. During the day I get it. In the evening I am so not there yet. It’s going to take a while to separate food from mental state. Fasting helps with this.

Stage 1 is meant to last a minimum of 2 weeks, or until you are 6.8 Kg away from your goal (that’s about 15 lbs). Right now, I’m 6.7 Kg away from my goal, so as long as I keep dropping I can move to stage 2 at the end of this week. Alternatively, if you’re 4.5Kg away from goal, you move onto stage 3.

Breakfast. EGGS!

Water
Water

Off to to the shopping. Ha! Never shop hungry.

Lunch. I have 10 minutes before I collect the girls from school so quickly nosh a Babybel Gouda and two slices of roast chicken.

Get the kids. Oh arseholes and woozles! I forgot to buy eggs & sugar free jelly!! Take kids back to the supermarket in the current 30 degree heat (that’s Celsius) to acquire the staple Atkins food and promptly spend £18 on eggs, jelly and splendour (how?!).

Home. Time to get ready for the Brownie beach BBQ where we meet the people taking the girls on their brownie camp this year. Just time to slice open the big watermelon I bought today for the kids. Big juicy slices for the girls…

…. And I blow 5g of my 20g carb allowance on a teeny slice of watermelon.

Ooh it was lovely in this heat. I regret nothing. See?

I dropped the girls off at their BBQ with a mild sense of impending dread as this is the ‘pre-meet’ for brownie camp. The first time the girls have been away from home. I’m half terrified that they’ll be sad away from home, and half terrified that they’ll act up for someone who isn’t me.

Went home to make dinner for me & parents (LSH is out at kickboxing – aka getting his arse handed to him by particularly fit ladies. Best not to think about that really). Meatballs & mushrooms with pasta for them and a regulated salad for me (ditched the cucumber and celery to try to remain inside my carb quota).

Dammit. I’ve gone over by 1.4 grams. I’m quite up on the calories too at 1616 for the day. In terms of Atkins calories, I’m fine. It should be between 1500 – 1800 rather than the obscene 800 that the Cambridge diet aimed for.

How did I go wrong? Well, that slice of melon for starters, and I probably could’ve coped with just three meatballs instead of six. On the upside, I’m not rocking and crying over my lack of chocolate or pizza. In fact, I’m not even peckish. If I do get ansy later in the evening, I also have a fridge full of sugar free jelly which is now my safety net.

Tomorrow could be interesting. I’m going with my new school (large bunch of overheated and overexcited teenagers) on a trip to London and need to try out my low carb packed lunch without completely wilting.

I’ve not been hungry at all today. Hello ketosis, nice to ‘meat’ you, here, have some of my belly flab, oh no, no charge at all. I’ve been saving this for years and have no use for it anymore.

Like this:

Last night I fell asleep on the sofa by 8pm in a carb free dizzy haze and after hauling my backside to bed, promptly slept until 7am.

On the upside, this morning I weigh 84.1kg (that’s 0.9kg less than yesterday!).

Downside is I can’t actually function, so I’m swapping the insane 800 calorie carb free plan over to the induction phase of Atkins where I can at least ingest a bit more real food and stay in ketosis. I’m using a carb counter app which means I still have control.

Like this:

Day two and three are the worst I’m advised. Just keep drinking water. Right oh.

Morning – woke up hungry. Not interested in coffee, give me my shake! Half a shake later (I’m now making them with 200ml of water, 8 ice cubes and half measure of powder), I’m sated.

Get kids ready for school. LSH on lunchbox duty as I can’t bear to smell the food. LSH promptly makes himself a cheese omelette for breakfast. Bastard.

Sporty running friend arrives and we head out for a swim. I manage 20 mins of breast stroke before my back is screaming stop! No matter, there’s Powerhoop later!

Get back & have another half measure of strawberry foam protein yuck.

Water
Water
Water

Get ready for Powerhoop class. Eat half a box of grazebox black pepper pistachios to prevent fainting in class.

Go to Powerhoop and discover that using a multicoloured hoop to tenderise the flesh on your waist is a very funny, if rather painful experience (photos of bruise belt to follow).

Arrive home. Drink another half ass flavoured shake.

Water
Water
Water

Feel wobbly. Eat a babybel (60 cals, all protein).

Water
Water

Hate this diet.

Water
Rest of nuts.

Go out to buy salad & collect the kids. Bloody hell I want to eat that salad now…

Go out to have nails done. Have a headache and feel awful. Seriously consider shoving my face in the family sized bag of M&Ms in the kitchen. Resist.

Make chicken salad with no tomatoes (they have carbs) with olive oil & balsamic creame topped with sunflower seeds.

Still hungry.
Water.

LSH asked if I want anything from the shop. I answer “bread, pasta, CHIPS”. He says no. He clearly doesn’t love me. He’s left me to die of potato deficiency while I put the kids to bed. I’m too knackered to even get cross at them for arsing about.

Go on without me followers. Tell people I made it through without the carbs. Tell my bread rolls children I love them. The second day was the hardest.

Like this:

So I’m investigating the science behind the Cambridge diet and inventing my own version which is not based on me being sold vast quantities of miracle food in a cup. Then I’m going to base the summer around this & see how it goes. I’m not promising anything, but it can’t hurt to try. That and I can’t stand counting calories, syns and god know what else.

Before we went away, I was 86.9kg and convincing myself that I was fine with it (yeah, I’m not). In two weeks of reducing down the carbs and general size of meals (mainly due to the heat!) I’ve dropped to 85.5kg this morning after the long flight home. I’m at a stage where I’m ready to do something properly to drop the rest before I start the new school term.

This means I’m at a BMI of 27.9 (down from 28.4). To dip into the ‘healthy’ range of under 25, that number on the scales should read 76kg or lower. That’s 1st 7lbs (See? Imperial looks way easier than 9.5 kilos!).

The Cambridge diet works on the basis of reducing carbs, ingesting protein based liquid foods and massive calorie restriction in order to put the body into a starvation state of ketosis which means that it will turn to the body’s fat reserves to keep running. I’m going to be blunt. It’s a crash diet. It flies in the face of all standard information about slow weight loss and regular eating. It’s probably not that healthy, but then neither is walking around being twice the woman I want to be.

There are a number of phases of the diet which starts off at the extreme end and gradually adds in more ‘real’ food until you are eating ‘normally’ but with a reduced stomach capacity and an understanding of your actual eating habits (eg. Why you snack or eat until you hurt).

I’m still not totally convinced.

The phases are:

Sole Source: 3-4 Cambridge Diet meal products. 415-554 cals a day (1 week minimum, 12 weeks maximum) – only advised of you are clinically obese (I am clinically ‘overweight’ by 9 kilos, so no fortnight of crying from total starvation for me!)

Ok, so what’s so special about these particular food supplements? (More so, I am not visiting my own personal food salesperson – it seems way to much like a drug pusher for me!). Well, the calories are set, there are additional vitamins to help keep you alive and there’s no faffing with portions, cooking or weighing.

So the nutritional information of one of these Cambridge shakes is:

1 sachet + 230 ml water (+ ice if you’re turning it into a frappe)
Prices are estimated at £2.10 per ‘meal’ (but you have to sign up to the £44.10 per week price)

With the higher protein content, no ‘diet consultant’, and no financial tie in, albeit slightly higher calories, I’ve opted for the low GI shakes. And it turns out I can’t actually stomach a whole one anyway – so instead I’m going for 3-4 half portions throughout the day with extra water in between as they’re really flipping filling! I’m then combining that with the usual evening meal which I won’t be counting calories on, just eating generally healthy food.

I’ve not included Slimfast in this as after seeing the 30g of carbs which are all pure sugar, I’ve disregarded them completely. That’s more sugar per serving than Cola!